Toll Scheme Research Articles

An origin–destination based road pricing model for static and multi-period traffic assignment problems

To mitigate traffic externalities, we propose an origin–destination (OD) based road pricing model for traffic assignment problems. For elastic demand, we derive explicit optimal tolls for the OD-based pricing scheme. We also extend the model to a multi-period static traffic assignment (MSTA) where we derive analytically the route and OD-dependent tolls based on equilibrium conditions. We present some examples to show that the OD-based tolling scheme could improve the system welfare significantly, compared to the no-toll scenario (user equilibrium – UE).

A discrete rational adjustment process of link flows in traffic networks

A discrete dynamical system model, called a discrete rational adjustment process (DRAP), is built upon link-based variables to characterize the process of achieving equilibrium from a non-equilibrium state in traffic networks. The equilibrium state can be in either a deterministic or a stochastic user equilibrium state. The DRAP is formulated in a general framework with either fixed or elastic demand. Several mathematical properties of the DRAP are presented, including the invariance of its evolutionary trajectory, the equivalence between its stationary state and user equilibrium, the uniqueness of its stationary state, and its convergence. Proper toll schemes can make the DRAP evolve towards a system optimum state. Numerical experiments are carried out to show application of the DRAP and its properties and the effectiveness of toll schemes.

Development and comparison of choice models and tolling schemes for high-occupancy/toll (HOT) facilities

A high-occupancy/toll (HOT) lane is an increasingly popular form of traffic management strategy which reserves a set of freeway lanes for HOVs and transit users, while allowing low-occupancy vehicles (LOVs) to enter for a fee. In turn, HOT lanes maintain a minimal level of service by regulating the volume of entering LOVs. The focus of this paper is how to model the choice process of individual drivers, which dictates the volume of LOVs that choose to pay and take the HOT lane. Such models and the insights they provide can be very helpful for the toll setting process. Two simple formulations (an all-or-nothing assignment and an additive logit model) are compared with a proposed formulation based on the population value of time (VOT) distribution. Both static and dynamic toll setting algorithms are studied based on the proposed lane choice model, and their performance is compared under deterministic traffic behavior.

Effects of Freeway Mileage-Based Toll Scheme on the Short-Range Driver’s Route Choice Behavior

AbstractA mileage-based toll scheme will soon be adopted by Taiwan’s freeway system to replace the current toll station–based model. This new policy will increase the travel cost to some short-range drivers, and they may therefore choose to switch to alternate routes, depending on their perception of the equity and acceptability of the new toll scheme. This study attempts to utilize structural equations and the discrete-choice model to analyze the perceived attitudes of highway drivers toward the mileage-based toll scheme, as well as the effects of the perceived attitudes on route choice behaviors. The results show that perceived equity as well as perceived effectiveness and efficiency have positive effects on the acceptability of toll schemes and the utility to highway users, while switching barriers have negative effects on the utility to highway drivers. In addition, we have established a binary Logit model that incorporates perceived latent variables, the results of which show that a switching behavio...

Designing Emission Charging Schemes for Transportation Conformity

SUMMARYThis paper designs emission charging schemes to ensure traffic emissions not exceeding the emission budgets in emission regulation areas. In a network where all links are tollable, we prove that, under mild conditions, there exists a non‐negative link‐based toll scheme that achieves the transportation conformity requirement while minimizing total emissions. We further consider only tolling in the emission regulation areas and formulate a model to determine optimal area‐based emission charges to ensure the conformity. The model is formulated as a mathematical program with complementarity constraints. A solution framework is developed to solve the model, leveraging on a derivative‐free pattern search algorithm and integrating MOVES to estimate vehicular emissions more accurately. The proposed models are demonstrated on two numerical examples. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Improving the analysis of road pricing acceptability surveys by using hybrid models

Several international studies have analyzed the acceptability of road pricing schemes by means of an attitude survey in combination with the results of a stated choice experiment using both a descriptive analysis and a discrete-choice model with binary choice (“accept” or “not accept” the toll). However, the use of hybrid discrete choice models constitutes an innovative alternative for integrating subjective attitudes and perceptions deriving from the survey of attitudes with the more objective variables from the stated choice experiment. This paper analyzes the results of applying these models to measure the acceptability of interurban road pricing among different groups of stakeholders (road freight and passenger operators, highway concessionaires, and associations of private car users) with qualitatively significant opinions on road pricing measures. Our results show that hybrid models are better suited to explaining the acceptability of a road pricing scheme by different groups of stakeholders than a separate analysis of the survey of attitudes and a discrete-choice model applied on a stated choice experiment. A particular finding was that the strong psycho-social latent variable of the perception of fairness explains the rejection or acceptance of a toll scheme by road stakeholders.

Integration of Congestion Pricing and Intertemporal Preference Rate in Social Welfare Function

Many researchers have used theoretical or empirical measures to assess social benefits in transport policy implementation. However, few have measured social benefits by using discount rates, including the inter-temporal preference rate of users, the private investment discount rate, and the intertemporal preference rate of the government. In general, the social discount rate used is the same for all social actors. This paper aims to assess a new method by integrating different types of discount rates belonging to different social actors to measure the real benefits of each actor in the short term, medium term, and long term. A dynamic simulation is provided by a strategic land use and transport interaction model. The method was tested by optimizing a cordon toll scheme in Madrid, Spain. Socioeconomic efficiency and environmental criteria were considered. On the basis of the modified social welfare function, the effects on the measure of social benefits were estimated and compared with the classical welfare function measures. The results show that the use of more suitable discount rates for each social actor had an effect on the selection and definition of optimal strategy of congestion pricing. The usefulness of the measure of congestion toll declines more quickly over time. This result could be the key to understanding the relationship between transport system policies and the distribution of social actors’ benefits in a metropolitan context.

The Model of Optimal Non-Queuing Pricing for Port Container Yard

As there are limited space and hardware equipment of Port Container Yard, export containers have to queue outside for entry if the container yard reaches its capacity saturation. Therefore, some containers probably could not be completed the loading preparation on time, which would cause great damage to the shipper. In order to solve this problem, this research establishes a queuing pricing model for port container yards. After implementation of this toll scheme, it will be effective in dispersing containers’ arriving time, and so as to eliminate the queuing phenomenon outside the entrance of container yard.

On Revenue Recycling and the Welfare Effects of Second-Best Congestion Pricing in a Monocentric City

This paper explores the interactions between congestion pricing and a tax-distorted labor market within a monocentric urban equilibrium model. We compute the efficiency gains of various second-best policies, i.e. combinations of toll schemes and revenue recycling programs, with a predetermined level of public revenue. We find that 35% of the space-varying road tax does not reflect marginal external congestion costs, but rather functions as a Ramsey-Mirrlees tax, i.e. an efficiency enhancing mechanism allowing space differentiation of the labor tax. Such a space-varying tax adds a quite different motivation to road pricing, since it can produce large welfare gains even in the absence of congestion. We show that both a cordon toll and a flat kilometer tax achieve over 80% of these gains when combined with specific types of revenue recycling, such as labor tax cuts or public transport subsidies. Sensitivity analysis shows that the optimal type of revenue recycling depends on the level of inefficiency in the provision of public transport prior to the introduction of congestion pricing.

The impact of speed limits on traffic equilibrium and system performance in networks

Speed limits are usually imposed on roads in an attempt to enhance safety and sometimes serve the purpose of reducing fuel consumption and vehicular emissions as well. Most previous studies up to date focus on investigation of the effects of speed limits from a local perspective, while network-wide traffic reallocation effects are overlooked. This paper makes the first attempt to investigate how a link-specific speed limit law reallocates traffic flow in an equilibrium manner at a macroscopic network level. We find that, although the link travel time–flow relationship is altered after a speed limit is imposed, the standard traffic assignment method still applies. With the commonly adopted assumptions, the uniqueness of link travel times at user equilibrium (UE) remains valid, and the UE flows on links with non-binding speed limits are still unique. The UE flows on other links with binding speed limits may not be unique but can be explicitly characterized by a polyhedron or a linear system of equalities and inequalities. Furthermore, taking into account the traffic reallocation effects of speed limits, we compare the capability of speed limits and road pricing for decentralizing desirable network flow patterns. Although from a different perspective for regulating traffic flows with a different mechanism, a speed limit law may play the same role as a toll charge scheme and perform better than some negative (rebate) toll schemes under certain conditions for network flow management.

Managing congestion and emissions in road networks with tolls and rebates

Traffic congestion and emissions are two main types of social cost, and their minimization sometimes conflicts with each other. In this paper we seek nonnegative link toll schemes and/or link toll cum rebate schemes for Pareto-efficient control and management of both vehicular congestion and emissions on road networks using a bi-objective optimization approach. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such schemes to decentralize a given target link flow pattern. Then, we investigate the possibility of introducing such schemes to obtain specific Pareto system optimum target link flow patterns with two types of link emission function: increasing functions and non-monotonic functions, respectively.

Serviceability Based Park and Ride Choice Behaviors Influenced by Road Toll Policy for Metropolitan Commuting Corridors

Existing park and ride (P&R) facilities may enhance the serviceability of the transportation systems by redistributing travelers from vehicles mode to mass transit. As a tool in transportation demand management, road tolling policy will have an influence on the transportation system with P&R facilities. In this paper, impact of various road tolling policies on modal choice behaviors within context of commuting corridors with P&R services are investigated from the perspective of serviceability. The related road tolling schemes contains first-best toll, distance-based toll and cordon-based toll. The probability of commuters’ modal-choice is estimated using a stochastic equilibrium model. Innovatively, the serviceability concept is adopted to evaluate performances of different travel modes. Model results illustrate how transportation system performance is influenced by the different types of road tolling policies. Some of the results are concordant with empirical findings in the literature.

Effects of the optimal n-step toll scheme on bulk carriers queuing for multiple berths at a busy port

Compared with the liner container ships, the tramp bulk carriers often have to queue for vacant berths at a busy port. In order to solve this problem, this paper develops the optimal n-step toll schemes (n=1, 2, 3, …) to bulk carriers in a queue for multiple berths. Bulk carriers' queuing times at the anchorage will be rationally decreased after pricing the toll schemes. This paper also shows the regularities in all equilibrium results under the toll schemes. The above outcomes are useful if the flexible pricing policy to a queue of bulk carriers is considered by the port authorities.

Step tolling with bottleneck queuing congestion

In most dynamic traffic congestion models, congestion tolls must vary continuously over time to achieve the full optimum. This is also the case in Vickrey (1969) ‘bottleneck model’. To date, the closest approximations of this ideal in practice have so-called ‘step tolls’, in which the toll takes on different values over discrete time intervals, but is constant within each interval. Given the prevalence of step-tolling schemes they have received surprisingly little attention in the literature. This paper compares two step-toll schemes that have been studied using the bottleneck model by Arnott et al. (1990) and Laih (1994). It also proposes a third scheme in which late in the rush hour drivers slow down or stop just before reaching a tolling point, and wait until the toll is lowered from one step to the next step. Such ‘braking’ behaviour has been observed in practice. Analytical derivations and numerical modelling show that the three tolling schemes have different optimal toll schedules and reduce total social costs by different percentages. These differences persist even in the limit as the number of steps approaches infinity. Braking lowers the welfare gain from tolling by 14% to 21% in the numerical example. Therefore, preventing or limiting braking seems important in designing step-toll systems.

The single vehicle routing problem with toll-by-weight scheme: A branch-and-bound approach

Expressways in China make use of the toll-by-weight scheme, in which expressway tolls are collected based on the weight and traveling distance of the vehicle. Most vehicle routing models assume that the cost of traversing each edge is equivalent to edge length or some constant; as a result, such models cannot be practically applied to the Chinese expressway transportation system. This study addresses a new single vehicle routing problem that takes the vehicle’s (laden and unladen) weight into account. To solve this problem exactly, we provide a branch-and-bound algorithm with a provably valid lower bound measure, along with five dominance checkers for additional pruning. We analyze our algorithm using instances generated from standard TSP test cases, as well as two new sets of test cases based on real expressway information from the Gansu and Jiangxi provinces in China. The algorithm can be applied to any toll scheme in which the toll per unit distance monotonically increases with weight, even if the toll function is non-linear.

Welfare Effects of Congestion Pricing and Transit Services in Multiclass Multimodal Networks

This paper analyzes the welfare effects of congestion pricing with the use of a general bimodal network with heterogeneous users. Transit service is modeled as a cheaper (because of its lower operating cost) and undesirable (because of the relatively long travel time) alternative to the highway network and is added to an origin–destination pair as an exclusive link. The analysis characterizes the critical users—those who suffer the greatest loss from pricing—as those who experience the least change in travel time after pricing. Accordingly, the paper shows that critical users could be rich, poor, or middle class, depending on their origin and destination. This finding highlights the spatial heterogeneity of distributional effects. Furthermore, numerical experiments indicate that (a) those with a low value of time tend to benefit more from greater coverage of transit services than those with intermediate values of time; (b) in the presence of poor transit coverage, users with access to transit may share a disproportionally greater burden for the congestion relief generated by an optimum toll for the system; and (c) the optimum toll for the system generally leads to a welfare gap between the rich and the poor larger than those of toll schemes that have proportionally lower magnitudes and achieve smaller efficiency improvements.

Economic interpretation of sustainable development of the flax complex

This paper reviews the definition of the notions “stability†and “stable development†, and analyzes the factors influencing the development stability. We suggest the definition of the flax complex stable development and its assessment. We also examine the factors causing the flax complex functioning instability. An integral index was proposed to determine the stability of flax complex; this index takes into account the rate of growth (or decline) of major products manufacturing, commodities, profits from product sales, accounts receivable and accounts payable, investments into fixed capital, labor productivity, coefficient of manufacturing capacity utilization and updating of the basic funds. The paper deals with the problems of its development and modern state of flax sub-complex of agroindustrial complex, as well as with the matters of disproportions between the complex’s branches. It covers the causes of tolling schemes of flax processing businesses work and the role of the state in native market of flax products formation. The necessity of industry diversification and innovation development is substantiated.

AN ESTIMATION OF EFFICIENT TIME-VARYING TOLLS FOR CROSS HARBOR TUNNELS IN HONG KONG

This work estimates the distribution of a time-varying toll over a 24-hour period that minimizes the combined queue length of the three tunnels that traverse Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour, taking into account institutional constraints. Our results reveal that switching from a flat toll to a time-varying toll scheme would eliminate all existing tunnel queues. We argue that optimal tunnel tolling, coupled with the nonstop electronic toll collection mechanism already in place, could be the first step toward the implementation of electronic road pricing in Hong Kong. Optimal tolling would obviate the need to build a fourth harbor crossing in the near future.

Vertical separation as means to establish interoperability in road tolling in Europe

As more European roads become tolled by various means, an increasing share of road users become subject to more than one tolling scheme in their regular driving. This can be especially burdensome for long distance hauliers, who may pass several countries and tolled motorway systems during the course of 1 day. For this reason, a range of projects have been initiated attempting to increase the level of interoperability between tolling systems, many of which with only limited success. By analyzing current incentives, costs and benefits for toll operators and road users, we conclude firstly that the current level of interoperability is likely to be lower than socially optimal, and secondly that a direct regulation making the provision of interoperability mandatory is likely to be in excess of what is socially optimal. We argue that vertically separating the monopolistic toll operators could be a cost-efficient way to achieve a socially optimal level of interoperability as a equilibrium market outcome.

The Morning Commute Problem with Coarse Toll and Nonidentical Commuters

This paper studies the morning commute problem under a flat peak-period toll (coarse toll) within the context of heterogeneous commuters. All the possible cumulative departure curves resulting from different choices of toll level and charging period are examined. The optimal toll schemes are then derived from minimizing the total travel cost of all commuters, excluding toll cost. We prove that at the optimum there will be no queue or capacity waste at the bottleneck at both the starting and ending points of the charging period for the type of Value-Of-Time (VOT) distribution considered in the paper. Moreover, the optimal coarse toll scheme is pareto-improving. Different from the homogeneous case, which can be regarded as a special case of the heterogeneous case, price discrimination occurs when commuters have different VOT. The optimal solution depends on the units in which the system cost is measured and we find that commuters in the middle pack of the VOT distribution are worse off by higher toll charges if the system cost is measured in money instead of time. A numerical example is provided at the end for demonstration.